Northrop Grumman Corp will allocate US$100 million annually to Taiwan-related projects starting next year, an executive with the U.S.-based defense contractor said yesterday.
Northrop Grumman corporate vice president and global business development officer Stephen O'Bryan made the pledge during a press event at the Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Expo (TADTE), which opened at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center's Hall 1 yesterday.
Photo: REUTERS
In his address, O'Bryan said his company, a global giant in the aerospace and defense business, just opened an office in Taipei last month to accelerate access to strengthen partnerships with customers and local industry.
"Keeping with the last component of engagement with Taiwan's industry, I'm happy to announce today that Northrop Grumman will be committing to US$100 million annually of opportunities for Taiwan to become part of Northrop Grumman's global supply chain," he said.
Over the coming months, the company will ask its newly-appointed Taiwan office chief Fisher Huang (黃思勳) to engage with Taiwan's defense industries and to understand their capabilities, O'Bryan said.
"And then in early 2024, we will have a team from the United States to come in with more advanced discussions and requests for proposals with our global supply chain with Taiwan," he added.
Huang, a retired Taiwanese Air Force officer, told reporters in the same press event that the pledged amount of money will be spent on working with potential Taiwanese partners and help boost the nation's domestic defense industry.
The US$100 million annual budget could be subject to change after the first year, depending on the capabilities of Taiwanese defense industry partners and the scale of cooperation, he added.
Huang said Northrop Grumman has long been a partner of Taiwan's Air Force by making its F-5Es that have served in the country for more than 40 years. Taiwan's E-2K Hawkeye early-warning aircraft is also a product of the American company, he said.
The US company is looking forward to potential cooperation with Taiwan in building advanced trainer jets, UAVs as well as a domestic satellite program being developed by the Taiwan Space Agency, Huang said.
Northrop Grumman is one of the prominent participants in this year's TADTE, which runs until tomorrow, after a four-year break.
Other American companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp, L3Harris Technologies Inc, Raytheon Co and BAE Systems, together with 41 small to medium-sized companies are showcasing their products at the debut USA Pavilion in the three-day show.
The last time TADTE was held was in 2019. The 2021 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,
RSS